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Honeybear did not care

I just joined your site as I need advice with a problem. It is deer hunting and a hunter must have disturbed a bear yesterday, as last night a bear busted my hive apart ate all the honey and I've lost half of my bees. We have had a cold week and last night it was 27 degrees with a high of 34 today. We moved the hive into a well ventilated shed where they will be safe but with no food and winter coming is all hope lost for their survival.
Thanks, Sue

Re: Honeybear did not care

If you are saying the bees are OK, but have no stored honey anymore, it is possible to feed them sugar to get them thru the winter. There are quite a few options, this page from Michael Bush's site discusses many of them:http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm

Personally, I'd just use granulated white sugar, placed on a sheet of newspaper above the frames where the bees are clustered. Put an empty hive body over the sugar to protect it.

Re: Honeybear did not care

What does a deer hunter have to do with you having a hungry bear? Did the hunter show the bear where your hives are? Seriously, do you have an idea if you still have the queen in the mix some where. WVMJ

Originally Posted by oh!honey

I just joined your site as I need advice with a problem. It is deer hunting and a hunter must have disturbed a bear yesterday, as last night a bear busted my hive apart ate all the honey and I've lost half of my bees. We have had a cold week and last night it was 27 degrees with a high of 34 today. We moved the hive into a well ventilated shed where they will be safe but with no food and winter coming is all hope lost for their survival.
Thanks, Sue

Re: Honeybear did not care

Sorry about your loss - I once lost 10 colonies to bear. Never again. 3 of my 5 yards now have electric fences powered by solar energizers. The other two are in areas where I'm not overly concerned about bears.

The bears should be hibernating soon, so you've got a bit of time to put together your defense. There are lots of resources on the internet about bees and bear fencing; the most important point is the fence needs to be up and operating before bears learn of the tasty treats waiting for them. While bears will and do eat honey what they are generally after in spring is bee brood. Protein for bruins. Spring and early summer are the times when bears are most problematic for beekeepers, but as you found out they can do damage late in the year too!

Unfortunately in agriculture your best efforts and desires are often not enough to accomplish what you want. Given what you report the hive is unlikely to survive as a solo unit. If it were me I'd combine the surviving bees with another colony.

So it goes.

Bear fencing is not a physical barrier so it does not need to be super strong. What I have is electric netting, commonly sold as sheep fence, with additional grounding. 36-40 inches tall is plenty. The fence should be far enough away from the hives so that a bear can't reach over the fence and get to the hive. Be sure to test the fence once you have it up - either by grabbing it yourself or using a tester. Grabbing it will tell you if it works - the tester will tell you how well. I suggest the tester.

Re: Honeybear did not care

Originally Posted by Andrew Dewey

Grabbing it will tell you if it works ...

Originally Posted by Andrew Dewey

... the tester will tell you how well. I suggest the tester.

If you don't want to spend money for a commercial tester, you can make one from a scrounged spark plug, and a scrounged ignition wire with a connector that fits to the sparkplug. I just bent a piece of scrap wire into a hook and attached that to the other end of the ignition wire. Gap the plug to your desired spark size. I just hook a ground wire with one end of the ignition wire, then touch the body of the spark plug to the hot fence wire. Works pretty well, and is free!

Re: Honeybear did not care

Andrew - you wrote "3 of my 5 yards now have electric fences powered by solar energizers"

Do you keep your solar energizers out all winter or do you store them for the winter after the bears go into hibernation?

Out all winter - and as of now with no snow on the ground all are operating as they should. They will short out once we accumulate some snow but once the snow has gone they start working normally again. I've got a Parkmak Magnum 12 energizer going into its third winter with the original battery. (Though I purchased a replacement this summer but the unit hasn't needed it yet) Forget the 6 volt units - if you need to go solar get a 12 volt unit. The fence needs to pack enough of a punch to convince the bear that there are easier forage opportunities outside the fence. Don't skimp on the energizer - get the best unit you can afford.

Re: Honeybear did not care

Hello and Thanks to everyone for your help. My hive that the bear beat up was surrounded by four foot high sheep fence, and then inside of that was an electric fence, but the charger must have been weak. We have had bears before but they have never gotten inside the fencing. Today, I put a bag of sugar in a super on top of the hive and I will just hope that they survive the winter. Thanks again. Sue